FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR

NOTE: The Solicitations and topics listed on this site are copies from the various SBIR agency solicitations and are not necessarily the latest and most up-to-date.
For this reason, you should use the agency link listed below which will take you directly to the
appropriate agency server where you can read the official version of this solicitation and download the appropriate forms and rules.

Available Funding Topics

ADVANCED CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGY FOR PARTICLE ACCELERATORS

The DOE High Energy Physics (HEP) program supports a broad research and development (R&amp;D) effort in the science, engineering, and technology of charged particle accelerators, storage rings, and associated apparatus. The strategic plan for HEP includes initiatives on the energy and intensity frontiers, relying on accelerators capable of delivering beams of the required energy and intensity.
As high energy physics facilities get bigger and more costly, the DOE HEP program seeks to develop advanced technologies that can be used to reduce the overall machine size and cost, and also to develop new concepts and capabilities that further scientific and commercial needs beyond HEPs discovery science mission.
Please note that this year the topics have been grouped by technology, rather than by the High Energy Physics frontier to which they belong, as was done in prior years.
In many cases the technology sought is closely tied to a specific machine concept which sets the specifications (and tolerances) for the technology. Applicants are strongly encouraged to review the references provided. Applications to subtopics specifically associated with a machine concept that do not closely adhere to the specifications of the machine will be returned as non-responsive.
For subtopics that are not machine-specific (typically labeled General Topics), applicants are strongly advised to understand the state-of-the-art and to clearly describe in the application what quantitative advances in the technology will result.

Advanced Concepts and Modeling for the Muon Accelerator Program

The mission of the U.S. Muon Accelerator Program (MAP) is to develop and demonstrate the concepts and critical technologies required to produce, capture, condition, accelerate, and store intense beams of muons for Muon Colliders and Neutrino Factories [1,2]. Current plans involve staged facilities beginning with neutrino factories, possibly followed by a low energy collider (Higgs Factory), and eventually leading to a multi-TeV energy collider. Muon-based facilities have the potential to discover and explore new exciting fundamental physics, but will require the development of demanding technologies and innovative concepts. Grant applications are sought, as described in greater detail below, related to the production of muon beams, muon cooling, and rapid muon acceleration.
1) 6D Cooling of Muon Beams Utilizing Rectilinear channels: To meet the proposed Muon Collider performance goals, 6D ionization cooling is required down to transverse emittances of less than 0.3 mm-rad and longitudinal emittances of approximately 2 mm. Rectilinear channels have been proposed with demonstrated capability to achieve 6D cooling of muon beams of both charge species simultaneously: a Helical FOFO Snake [3]; and a Rectilinear Planar Snake[4,5,6]. In both cases, plane parallel absorbers are employed and cooling of both signs occurs simultaneously. The Helical FOFO lattice must be modified and scaled in order to meet the above transverse emittance requirement. Scaling of the Planar Snake lattice has been successfully demonstrated.
Grant applications are sought to examine in greater detail either of the referenced lattice types. The magnet designs should be refined, including the use of different conductor materials in areas with differing fields. Required superconductor current densities should then be compared with published conductor performances for the chosen geometry. Radial and other forces and strains within the coils should be calculated, together with the forces between the coils. In a second phase, the dimensions of structures required to restrain these forces should be calculated, and estimates made of the required specifications for such structures. Estimates should also be made of specifications needed for thermal isolation, rf feeds and other needed structures.
2) Large Aperture Kickers for Muon Cooling Rings: A significant cost savings in both capital construction and operations could be realized if cooling rings could be employed in the cooling chain for a Muon Collider. The injection and extraction systems for each ring will be challenging in that the muon beams have large emittances especially at the beginning of the cooling chain. Transverse emittances on the order of 1 to 5 mm-rad are expected; hence the kicker apertures must be larger than typical. Several types of cooling rings [7,8,9] have been considered but all will require these technically advanced kickers. Initial studies of the necessary kicker parameters [10] have confirmed the basic challenge of these kickers.
Grant applications are sought for both the design of kicker hardware and an accompanying pulsed power system.
3) R&amp;D for Rapid Acceleration of Muons- Dogbone RLA with Multi-Pass Arcs: Recirculating Linear Accelerators (RLAs) are a fast, compact and efficient way of accelerating lepton and possibly ion beams to medium and high energies by reusing the same linac for multiple passes, or to recycle the energy of the beam. In a conventional RLA, the different-energy passes coming out the linac are separated and directed into individual return arcs for recirculation. Thus, each pass through the linac requires a separate fixed energy arc, increasing the complexity, size, and cost of the RLA. A novel RLA concept involves return-arc optics design based on linear combined function magnets with variable dipole and quadrupole field components, which allows two consecutive passes with very different energies to be transported through the same string of magnets [11,12].
Grant applications are sought to develop a complete conceptual design for a scaled electron model of such an RLA (i.e. a model developed by scaling a GeV muon design for electrons yielding a machine that fits in a compact area). Along with a conceptual design, a cost comparison to an alternative separate-arc design should also be done. Proposals are also invited on the conceptual engineering design of the above-mentioned multi-pass arc magnets, capable of handling wide energy ranges, and related systems.
4) A Pulsed Dipole for Muon Beam Acceleration in an RCS: A Muon Collider will require final acceleration of muons to TeV-scale energies. For this purpose, a final acceleration stage based on a Rapid Cycling Synchrotron (RCS) [13,14] is envisioned. At these energies, the RCS lattice contains a sequence of fixed field superconducting dipoles and pulsed warm dipoles capable of +-- 1.8T swings at a rate of 2 to 8 T-ms [15].
Grant applications are sought to develop a detailed magnet design achieving the required performance along with a cost effective pulsed power supply system. In a second phase, prototypes of the magnet and power supply system could be built and tested.

Computational Tools and Simulation of Accelerator Systems

1) Improved Accelerator Modeling Simulation Codes: Grant applications are sought to develop new or improved computational tools for the design, study, or operation of charged-particle-beam optical systems, accelerator systems, or accelerator components. These tools should incorporate innovative user-friendly interfaces, with emphasis on graphical user interfaces and windows, and tools to translate between standard formats of accelerator lattice description. Grant applications also are sought for the conversion of existing codes for the incorporation of these interfaces (provided that existing copyrights are protected and that applications include the authors&apos; statements of permission where appropriate).
2) Improved Integration of Accelerator Codes: Grant applications also are sought for user-friendly tools in software integration for different components including preprocessors and postprocessors of existing codes or for different application codes into a framework to enhance simulation of accelerator systems[1].
3) Accurate Modeling and Prediction of High Gradient Breakdown Physics: Grant applications also are sought to develop simulation tools for modeling high-gradient structures, in order to predict such experimental phenomena as the onset of breakdown, post breakdown phenomena, and the damage threshold. Specific areas of interest include the modeling of: (1) Surface emission, (2) Material heating due to electron and ion bombardment, (3) Multipactoring, and (4) Ionization of atomic and molecular species. Approaches that include an ability to import-export CAD descriptions, a friendly graphical user interface, and good data visualization will be a plus.
4) Software for Multi-Physics Modeling of MAP Systems: In the past decade HEP-driven accelerator modeling codes have become increasingly sophisticated. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that accelerator codes now combine multiple phenomena, such as single particle nonlinear optics, space-charge effects, beam-beam effects, and beam-material interactions. But there are some phenomena that are important to the HEP mission that are still missing from accelerator codes.
Grant applications are sought for development and deployment of codes and software modules that are important to HEP projects and for which current capabilities do not exist or are not sufficient. Regarding the simulation of MAPs muon cooling systems [2,3,4], those based on gas-filled rf cavities require complex modeling of the beam-plasma interaction [5]. Such processes are also expected to be relevant to other advanced concepts involving beams and plasmas. Proposals are sought for codes and modules to self-consistently model the interaction of beams with plasmas, including beam-plasma interactions in gas-filled rf cavities, plasma production by incoming beams, and plasma and atomic physics processes. Proposals are also sought for developing code capabilities for modeling collective effects in matter, for modeling polarized muon processes, and for combining beam dynamics codes with neutrino interaction codes to accurately predict neutrino radiation in a muon collider.

Particle Beam Sources (Electron and Ion)

1) High Brightness Electron Sources: Grant applications are also sought to demonstrate technologies that support the production of high-peak current (&gt; 5 kA), low-emittance (&lt; 0.15 micrometer) electron bunches (&gt; 100 pC). Novel emittance partitioning concepts are of particular interest, including developing high compression ratio (&gt;20) bunch compressors based on coupled emittance exchangers that suppress effects from coherent synchrotron radiation.
2) Particle Beam Sources for Project-X[1]- High Intensity Proton Sources: Grant applications are sought for the design, and demonstration unit(s), of low emittance DC H sources capable of operating at up to 15 mA with a long lifetime. Long lifetime means greater than one month, minimum, with concurrent high reliability in operations. Of particular interest are sources operating at ~30 keV.

Novel Device and Instrumentation Development

Novel Device and Instrumentation Development for Project-X[1]: Grant applications are sought for beam deflecting devices that can be used to remove or deflect proton or ion bunches for the purpose of forming variable bunch patterns in high intensity proton accelerators (see also Deflecting Cavities in next topic).
Specific areas of interest include:
1) Deflecting structures capable of removing individual bunches within a beam from a ~2 MeV CW source, and with a 162.5 MHz bunch structure; specifically with capabilities of providing arbitrary chopping patterns based on selective removal of bunches spaced at 6 nsec; and
2) Driver concepts, either amplifier or switch based, suitable for driving such deflectors with several 100 volts into impedances of 50 or 200 Ohms.
Fast Beam Kicker: Grant applications are sought for a fast beam kicker with 50 ns rise time and 150 kV total transverse kick.